Actually, I think you may wish to watch that video link I posted here. You may be surprised by some of the assumptions you're making.
You're probably correct that the oil companies will not put more than 10% of ethanol in their own gasoline mix.
However, Flex fuel vehicles will run off of any percentage mix of ethanol/gasoline, or all ethanol, or all gasoline.
The top estimate for the amount of land needed to replace virtually all gasoline production is about 100 million acres.
Others, have estimated 55-60 million acres. Even less acreage would be needed with cellulosic ethanol and alternative plants like switchgrass. There are a lot of interesting technologies in the works that could make this reality.
Americans used 140 billion gallons of gasoline in 2005. We are already producing 4 billion gallons a year of ethanol and estimates are we will be producing six billion gallons by next year.
If we only produced half (70 billion gallons of ethanol) a decade from now, and if people used their own half ethanol half gasoline mix, that is still an enormous amount of gasoline we will not be using.
Not to mention the jobs created by the farmers, refineries, transportation, and the rest of the infrastructure that an ethanol industry would need. And, that's money that stays here and does not go to Iran, Saudi Arabia, or Venezuela.
I don't doubt you know ADM very well, but I think they are becoming more important than you realize. |
